Ryan and Brittney: October 2014

Saturday, October 11, 2014

Forward facing

I thought she might like her new car seat since it was forward facing, but nope. She just hates being in the car at all and just screams the whole time. So, yeah. I avoid extra trips anywhere at any cost. Lucy usually ends up plugging her ears and yelling "TOO NOISY CLAIRE!!!" Hahaha. Oh well, she will grow out of it.

Desperate times call for desperate measures... like handing your one-year-old child a granola bar to keep her from screaming.

Fire trucks

One evening Lucy and I went to story time at the library during fire safety week and they had firemen and a firetruck come visit. They let all the kids walk through and took them around the whole truck, showing them all of the special things about it. It was a lot of fun and Lucy loved it! It also happened to be raining on and off all night and there was a huge double rainbow in the sky. After story time, we swung by McDonald's and got Lucy a chocolate chip cookie. Such a fun night with just me and her!

Swaddle time

Lucy found an old baby hat and swaddle blanket one day and BEGGED me to swaddle "her baby" (a.k.a. Claire) and let her hold her. I assured her that Claire wouldn't like that but with so much persisting I finally gave in. Well, turns out Claire thought it was hilarious! So then of course Lucy wanted a turn next, so we played this little game for a while and all had a good time laughing about it!

Neighbor Girls Night Out

I live in the best neighborhood ever. I already dread when we have to move and I know it won't be for a while. Of all of the homes around us, almost every one of them has a child or a few that are my kids ages and almost all of them are stay-at-home mom's. So I see these ladies every single day, we are always out and about with each other during the day, our kids all get along, we all pretty much parent in similar ways and have similar standards when it comes to parenting and life in general (well, mostly... I am the only Mormon, but they are all very active in their own respective churches as well, which is great). Anyway, there are monthly scheduled craft and game nights, where 20 or more of our neighbor friends will go to, but this particular night a few of us snagged an awesome groupon for one of those pottery painting places. We went there and then out to dinner and it was a blast! I feel so blessed to be surrounded by such great neighbors!

Preschool

As I mentioned before, we do a little at-home preschool with a few of our neighbor friends that are Lucy's age. I got the ball rolling with it since I knew I wanted to do something of the sort, but these other two moms have been gung-ho with it as well and have both done a lot of teaching in their days and you can tell because they do an awesome job! It's exactly what I was hoping it would be for Lucy. We hosted the first day a few weeks ago and talked all about the letter A, sang some fun songs, played a game or two, did a craft, and ate apples for a snack (we cut them with an apple peeler/slicer, so they looked like spirals, which of course made it more fun to eat).

Baby pushing a baby

Rocks in the pond

One of our favorite things to do these days is to walk down the street to the little pond and throw rocks in. Always a good way to pass some time on a nice day!

Snuggly Bear

Claire is SUCH a snuggly little girl and I LOVE it!! Whenever she is tired, upset, even happy about something, her first reaction is to come crawl over to me and snuggle. Here she is one morning before church and very tired still. She just came and settled right in on my lap while I was sitting down helping Lucy with something. Cute, cute girl!!

Sleep-in celebration

These girls take turns waking up early/sleeping in. The very day that my early-riser-of-the-moment decides to sleep in is always the day that my usually-sleeps-in child wakes up at the crack of dawn. Basically I never get sleep. But one very, very miraculous morning, both girls slept in until 7:40ish. Too bad I woke up at 6:15 to be dressed and ready before they woke up, but at least I had a bit of time to myself to enjoy some peace and quiet before the craziness began! Anyway, as soon as the girls woke up, we went straight to the store in their pajamas and grabbed a donut to celebrate because that is DEFINITELY cause for some celebration. Unfortunately, it hasn't happened since. One of these days...

Nails with Lucy

Lucy loves to paint nails and especially with my gel stuff. The problem is that she is also a picker! As soon as I paint her nails, she is picking at them and peeling it all off! Every time! She loves it so much and begs for it so often that I give in and do it but always regret it when it looks awful a few minutes later. Anyway, that's why I took a picture... because they last longer. :) This particular day though, she couldn't decide on a color and wanted all of them, so that's what we did! I actually thought it was really cute!!

Baking with Lucy

Lucy loves loves loves to help me in the kitchen with everything. Mostly because she wants to eat half of whatever is being made at the time, but hey, whatever. Anyway, she always gets a little goofy and excited too. Love that about my girl! This particular day, she made cards for a bunch of our neighbor friends and wanted to deliver them with some peanut butter cookies. So that's what we did!

Gymnastics

I felt like Lucy was really needing some organized activities in her life to keep her from being too bored and to just give her some new opportunities and social interactions. She takes Gymnastics class on Monday evenings, we go to storytime at the library on Tuesdays, and then at-home preschool with neighbors on Wednesdays, and a Music Makers class on Thursdays. We do all of these with the same two neighbors, which also helps Lucy too, I think. Anyway, my neighbor took pictures of Lucy for me at gymnastics (since I am trying to help Lucy while holding Claire). She gave them to me in a hard copy, so here are some pictures of pictures.

Lucy was super timid at the beginning of the first class. I was a little worried that I had wasted my money because she just stood there and watched everyone while begging to hold my hand and grab my leg. She refused to participate at all and looked like she was going to cry the whole time. But by the end, she was having a blast on this little bar. And after that first day, she BEGS to go back, totally participates with a smile, and runs all over the place doing it all and LOVES it! I am so so glad I signed her up for this class!

Another visit from Aunt Wanda

My aunt came to visit us again in September and we had so much fun with her, as usual! Lucy was so excited for her to come and kept asking all day if she was coming "right now" on the day she was driving down. We went to Lucy's music makers class and the park and then then to Lisa's to see her and the girls.

Claire and Ally, BFF's

These two girlies are already great friends. Ally was born 3 months to the day before Claire and they are forced to be friends since their moms and siblings are. Ha! But its so funny because the second we set them down by each other, Claire goes straight to grabbing Ally's pacifier and Ally goes straight to grabbing Claire's bow and neither of them cares because they are more interested in whatever they are grabbing on the other person! It's pretty funny to watch. They also crawl over to each other and do the same things, like waving at the window to their older siblings outside on the trampoline, reading books together, and playing with the same toys. ;)

"That awkward moment when you realize you showed up in the exact same outfit as your friend..." These next two pictures crack me up!

Fall is here!

I love hot summer weather, but fall is by far my most favorite holiday. It's so much easier getting around with kids when the weather is absolutely perfect! Not too hot and not too cold... sure! Let's go to the park! We have gone to the park almost daily and taken a lot of bike rides and walks around the block and to our neighborhood pond to throw rocks in it. While the mornings/evenings can require a good layer or two (or winter coat), the afternoons have been pretty pleasant. Fall is the best.

The wagon ride was fun for the first half but then Claire decided it would be could to ride standing up, so I spent the rest of the time trying to get her to sit down. It got a little crazy. No more wagon rides until she can sit down and stay down. ;)

Every time we go to the park, Lucy wants to go on the monkey bars. The problem is that she can't do them by herself yet, so she just climbs up, grabs on to the first one, and waits and.or yells for me to come help her. Usually I am helping Claire go around the park though so it throws me off and I have to run fast to where she is! Crazy girl.

Claire's crazy cozy coupe hair

Princesses

Lucy and her friend Mya played dress up one day and then stayed that way the rest of the time. Lucy doesn't usually keep dress up clothes on for very long but she had a blast doing it when a friend was dressed up with her!

Sunday outside

It was beautiful weather a few Sundays ago, so we spent a while outside, just hanging out on a blanket with some (a lot) of toys, and standing on bikes in cowgirl boots. You know, the usual. It was such a great, relaxing evening as a family.

Splish Splash on a Saturday night

Claire LOVES bath time and the second she hears the bath water start to run, she books it into the bathroom and tries her darndest to touch the water coming out of the faucet. She stands so far up on her tippy toes for so long trying to do that, it has got to be uncomfortable. I had to get a picture of it.

These two can get real giggly when they start to get tired and loopy (and sometimes real cranky, but this was obviously not one of those nights).

Monday, October 6, 2014

Claire and her bears

Claire LOVES Big Bear. Lucy did (and still does) too. But there was a stretch of a few weeks where Claire and Lucy's naps weren't quite matching up and every single day while Lucy was asleep, Claire would crawl over to Big Bear in the corner and just snuggle up with him for a while and put her feet up on the side of the tv stand next to her. I would often be cleaning up or something and realize that I didn't see Claire playing with her toys anymore and she got really quiet. Lo and behold, she was snuggled with Big Bear every time. I love that he's her cute fuzzy friend. :)